Israel tightens grip on Palestinian towns

Three Palestinians were killed today as Israeli tanks moved deeper into West Bank towns, tightening their grip on biblical Bethlehem and five other towns in the widest operation against the Palestinians in years.

Three Palestinians were killed today as Israeli tanks moved deeper into West Bank towns, tightening their grip on Bethlehem and five other towns in the widest operation against the Palestinians in years.

The three-day-old assault, retaliation for the assassination of an Israeli Cabinet minister by a radical PLO faction, drew harsh international criticism and set off disagreements within Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s coalition government.

Some members of the moderate Labour Party threatened to quit the government if the escalation continued.

The focus of violence today was Bethlehem, where Palestinians said three people were killed by Israeli gunfire, a police officer and a civilian in a nearby refugee camp and another civilian when a shell landed near a hospital.

Israel’s army said Palestinians threw a bomb at an Israeli tank near the refugee camp, setting off an exchange of fire, and it was looking into the hospital incident.

Palestinians reported two injuries when a tank shell exploded 50 yards from the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, marking the birthplace of Jesus. The Israeli military, holding tank positions several miles away, said soldiers fired a shell at armed men firing at them.

Palestinian gunmen, meanwhile, opened fire from nearby Beit Jalla on the Jewish neighbourhood of Gilo in a disputed part of Jerusalem, Israeli police said.

A few miles north of Jerusalem, Israeli troops also moved further into Ramallah, the seat of Yasser Arafat’s government in the West Bank, and took over the Palestinian Local Affairs Ministry.

Israeli officials said the moves were made necessary by Arafat’s inaction against militant groups refusing to honour a September 26 ceasefire, and dismissed Palestinian claims that Arafat had outlawed such groups in recent days as rhetoric.

Palestinians say Arafat arrested 20 members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which claimed responsibility for Wednesday’s killing of ultra-nationalist Israeli minister Rehavam Zeevi. The PFLP said it was avenging the August 27 killing of its own leader, whom Israel accused of attacks on civilians.

‘‘The state of Israel has the right to defend the lives of Israelis. We don’t have interest in staying in Palestinian cities. That’s not the goal of this activity,’’ said Israeli Cabinet secretary Gideon Saar. ‘‘If there will be quiet, we’ll pull out.’’

Arafat aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh said the Palestinian leader told US Secretary of State Colin Powell today that the United States must put pressure on Israel to withdraw.

‘‘This issue will be a test (of) the willingness of the US to keep its coalition, or to sacrifice the Arabs and Muslims to satisfy’’ Israel, Abu Rdeneh added.

He was referring to US concerns that Israeli-Palestinian fighting could hinder efforts to maintain the support of moderate Arab nations for US operations against Afghanistan’s Taliban government and terror suspect Osama bin Laden.

The Israeli incursions into the outskirts of six of the eight Palestinian towns in the West Bank were the most extensive since Israel began handing over land to the Palestinians in 1994 under interim peace accords.

Fighting began in September 2000 as the Palestinians and Israel’s previous, more dovish, government could not agree terms for a final peace deal. Since then, 698 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 186 on the Israeli side.

At the Vatican, Pope John Paul II expressed concern about the new flareup, saying during noon prayers that ‘‘violence is for everybody only a path of death and destruction which dishonours the holiness of God and the dignity of man’’.

At today’s weekly Cabinet session, Sharon said peace negotiations could resume only after all Palestinian violence stopped, rogue militants are disarmed, militants are arrested and Zeevi’s killers turned over.

Industry and Trade Minister Dalia Itzik said her Labour party should walk out of the government over the incursions. ‘‘We are not sitting there in order to occupy territories,’’ she told Army Radio.

But Finance Minister Silvan Shalom, from Sharon’s more hawkish Likud, said Arafat should be expelled from the Palestinian territories.

A survey published today showed the Israeli population no less divided. The Gallup poll, with a 4.5% margin of error, found 38% favoured all-out war against the Palestinians and 38% preferred accelerated peace talks.